As every year, the end of August and the beginning of September rhyme with bustle in bookstores. A social chronicle, a horrific thriller, or a cathartic tale, here are 10 queer novels to discover for this literary season.
The standout pick: A Whole Life to Search, by Kae Tempest. L’Olivier Editions.
Rothko Taylor is released from prison and returns to Edgecliff, the dark and austere coastal town where they grew up, fifteen years after leaving it. Everything has changed… or perhaps not. As memories mingle with the present, Rothko tries to make a fresh start, with the firm intention of finally moving toward something beautiful. Stories of redemption in a misery-stricken England gnawed by alcohol and drugs, we’ve read and seen a thousand times. But Kae Tempest, a poet and figure of British spoken word, stands out from these Ken Loach-esque tales with a poetic and luminous writing. And, above all, tells with great finesse queer identity in a universe where we rarely see it flourish. By making Rothko’s journey toward accepting their transmasculinity one of the elements of their return to life, Kae Tempest tackles gender identity with finesse, never making it a subject grafted onto the narrative. A story that will speak to queers of the 1990s and 2000s, who grew up with few representations to name their lived experience. Endearing and optimistic as we like.
Memoir
How does one live after having known the camps? With finesse and empathy, nourished by exchanges with his grandfather, the author of Prelude to His Absence asks the question of trauma and sketches the portrait of his great-grandmother deported for acts of resistance. A short family novel as intimate as it is powerful.
After Mireille, by Robin Josserand. Mercure de France Editions. (In bookstores August 27)
Fantastical
Between Ghostbusters and The Optimists, this surprising novel rooted in pop culture tackles the early years of AIDS in New York with as much extravagance as sensitivity. Funny, clever, and absolutely queer: an excellent discovery that renews narratives about the HIV pandemic.
Awaiting Marky Moon, by Natalie Adler. Phébus Editions. (In bookstores August 27)
Reflective
In a vivid and poetic language, the journalist and Afro-queer-feminist activist Douce Dibondo signs a debut novel that speaks as much about the contradictions within engaged LGBTQI circles as about the capacity to reinvent struggles and rethink justice.
The Movement, by Douce Dibondo. Rivages Editions.
Introspective
Diagnosed bipolar, autistic, psychotic, Alcide, a forty-something gay man, describes with a lucidity as impressive as it is clinical his psychological distress. By revealing mental illness from the inside, he offers a piece of raw literature as poignant as it is instructive. A stone in the edifice of destigmatizing mental disorders.
The Imbalance, by Alcide Pierantozzi. Gallimard Editions. (In bookstores September 3)
Mordant
A young man from the American Black bourgeoisie, Smith, whose roommate has just died under troubling circumstances, is forced to undergo a detox. It marks the beginning of a powerful social chronicle that probes the complexity of Black identity in the United States and the weight of family heritage.
The Great Black Dream, by Rob Franklin. Autrement Editions. (In bookstores August 26)
Cathartic
Raped as a child by her grandfather, a woman decides to file a complaint. Her appointment at the police station is canceled, so she opts for a more radical solution: kill the old man. Daria Marx delivers a powerful and urgent narrative of incest and its consequences, offering the perspective of a victim who chooses not resilience but rage.
Killing the Old Man, by Daria Marx. Flammarion Editions.
Sensitive
A boy harassed at school and convinced since childhood that he is odd meets Paul. In this debut novel, Matthieu Lefèvre draws with poetry a coming-of-age story that addresses self-understanding, the power of first love, and the weight of stigma in the middle class of the 2000s.
My First Name Is Fiction, by Matthieu Lefèvre. Éditions Perspective cavalière. (In bookstores September 15)
Intimate
Samuel Dock, also a psychologist and author of numerous essays, is a kink enthusiast. In this no-nonsense kink memoir, he reveals with surprising gentleness his sexuality and his latex-filled love life, tracing back to the origins of his fantasies without ever indulging the reader’s voyeurism.
Latex, by Samuel Dock. Grasset Editions. (In bookstores September 10)
Terrifying
With this second gripping novel, the former France Culture journalist mobilizes horror and the fantastical to lay bare patriarchal violence and confirms that for him, the imagination is both a refuge and a political weapon.
I Did Not Come to Bring You Peace, by Nicolas Martin. Le Diable Vauvert Editions. (In bookstores September 3)
